The Year We Sailed the Sun

by Theresa Nelson

“Enjoying your dinner, girls?” the nun asked quietly. (She was always the quietest of any ’em, which only made our hearts hammer all the louder.)

  “Yes, Sister.” “Yes, Sister.” “Yes, Sister,” we murmured, nodding and chewing up a storm.

  “Well, then. Bon appétit.” And she left us half-scorched with her burning eyes, and moved on to the next table.

  We started breathing again.

  “The mother,” Hazel whispered.

  “No better than he was,” said Marcella. Every girl at the table—even Betty herself—leaned in. “She used to dance in the line at the Standard Theatre, till Two-Bits got her in trouble. So he took her down to Saint Pat’s and got the priest to marry ’em, but another Rat followed ’em to the wedding. A much bigger Rat, who had a bone to pick with Two-Bits. He shot the groom dead, right there on the church steps, and the bride saw it all and went loony, and her kid was born too soon—in the nuthouse itself—before her brain was finished cooking.”

  “And how do you know so much?” I hissed at her, though I had a sick feeling she was telling the truth. Every Patch kid had heard of Two-Bits Brickey. Mickey Doyle even claimed to be his cousin. He was forever showing pretty girls the plugged-up bullet holes in the church door.

  “You don’t believe me?” Marcella snapped her fingers with one hand and caught the fly in her fist with the other. “Show her the mark, Betty.”

  Without so much as a blink, Betty popped a bread ball into her mouth and tugged down her collar.

  “Do you see?” said Marcella, pointing to the small purple birthmark—a backward L, tipped over—at the base of Betty’s neck. “If it was a dog that had scared her ma, that would look like a bite or a paw print. If it was thunder, she’d have a little thundercloud, black as night. But that right there? It’ll never come clean, no matter how hard you wash it. That’s the mark of the Rat Man’s gun, just as sure as you’re sittin’ here.”

  Winnie O’Rourke burst into tears.

  “Stop that,” Marcella ordered. “Now,” she added, handing Winnie her napkin as Sister Sebastian’s eyebrows lifted, two tables over.

  Winnie nodded and hiccupped and buried her face in the grease-stained cloth, smothering her sobs as best she could.

  Marcella shook her head. “Tender as a chicken,” she muttered.

  “Not this chicken,” said Hazel, pointing at her plate.

  I gave up trying to swallow. “This is chicken?” I asked Mary.

  Betty clucked softly and beamed on us all.

  “Any more questions?” Marcella opened her fist. The fly fell out, dead as a brick. “We don’t have secrets in the House of Mercy, do we, girls?”

  “I never asked—” I began, but she barreled right on, ticking off names on her fingers as she went along:

  “Little Hannah Hogan there, her pa’s in jail for slugging the landlord, and her ma couldn’t feed seven children and gave ’em all away. Agnes Crouse’s mother died of the galloping consumption—ain’t that right, Aggie?—and the dad’s a drunk. They all had typhus at the Mulroneys, except for Geraldine, and Lindy Buckley’s pa was kicked in the head by a horse. Do you get the picture, Your Worship? That side of the table is for charity cases, like the two of you.”

  I dropped my fork and tried to lunge at her, but Mary pulled me back down. “She’s only teasing, Julia. We’re all charity cases.”

  “Speak for yourself,” said Marcella. “There are three types of girls in this godforsaken place, as anyone with half a brain can tell you. Ain’t that so, Hazel?”

  I choked on a laugh.

  “Shut up,” said the half-a-brain.

  The long-neck ignored us. She was counting on her fingers again. “Number one: lace curtains. Day students, like Miss Namby and Miss Pamby there.” She pointed at a couple of girls with neat collars and rosy cheeks, whispering and giggling at the next table. Marcella sniffed. “They think they can walk on water. They learn their sums with the rest of us and go home to their stuck-up mothers and sit in their laps sipping tea from china cups with their pinkies in the air.”

  “We hate ’em,” said Hazel.

  “Even their mothers hate ’em,” said Marcella. She held up another finger. “Number two: salt of the earth. Paying boarders, like Hazel and me.” Winnie peeped out—soggy-faced—from behind her napkin. “And Winnie,” Marcella added, lifting her eyes to heaven.

  “Who is it that pays?” Mary asked.

  “What do you care?”

  “I was only asking—”

  “None of your business, that’s who. Friends and relations. Who do you think? The whole world ain’t in the Beggars’ Brigade, for your information.”

  Mary held me fast. “Steady,” she muttered.

  “Number three,” said the long-neck. “Like I said. Charity cases.” She took in the lot of us with a sweep of the hand.

  “And the laundry girls,” Hazel added. “Ain’t that four types, Marcella?”

  “Ah, no, they only work here. You can’t count the laundry girls. The Sisters don’t even bother ’em with lessons.”

  “Why not?” Mary asked.

  “Well, what would be the point? They teach you your two-plus-twos till you’re fourteen; then it’s straight downstairs to the scrub boards. Unless you get picked to go mind some rich lady’s brats, like the famous Rosie Flannigan.”

  I looked at Mary. Bloody hell . . .

  Marcella smiled serenely. “What’s the matter, Your Majesty? Don’t care for the turnips?”

  Mary’s hand was gripping my arm so tight, I could feel the bruises coming already.

  Today was—what?—the eighth of September?

  She’d be fourteen in a month.

  October

  Chapter 8

  It didn’t matter, I kept telling myself, as September ticked away. We’d be miles from here by October the eighth. Bill’s sign would be coming any minute now.

  Just a couple of weeks . . . a month, tops . . .

  Still, the days were growing shorter—though the shorter they got, the longer they seemed—and dead leaves clogged the gutters, and our breath turned to smoke when they marched us to Mass on Sundays, two by two. And if the wind was out of the east, we could smell the bonfires burning, away across the river, where the hoboes camped.

  Had I missed something somehow?

  Look deeper, Julia.

  Was there a sign of a sign?

  “Never mind,” Mary insisted, the morning before her birthday. “I’m sick of books anyhow. Gran read us all the good ones already, and she never went to school a day in her life.”

  But I saw her chin tremble—we were making our beds at the time—and though she turned away quickly, intent on her hospital corners, the early sun caught in the tear that rolled to the tip of her nose and hung there, shimmering.

  Betty Brickey saw it, too. She reached over and lifted the drop onto her little finger (Mary brushed her away, but Betty ignored her), then carried it carefully to me and held it up like an offering.

  Or a question?

  I was no better at understanding Betty Babble than I was when I first heard it, but her eye-talk was clear as glass to me now: Why is she crying? That was what she was saying. And clearer still: Make her stop.

  So I left, was what I did. I went to find Bill. Mary wouldn’t have agreed to it in a million years, so I didn’t bother telling her. He hadn’t forgotten us; well, of course he hadn’t. He didn’t know we were out of time, that was the trouble. He wouldn’t want me sitting around waiting for him while they turned our sister into some class of drudge.

  I looked for my chance all morning, but it never came till half past one, when we were marching from the refectory to our afternoon meditation. And then there was nothing to it, really. I just dropped back to the end of the line, pretending to tie a bootlace, waited for the hall to clear, slipped around under the stairs, opened the back door—

  And very nearly banged smack into Sister Gabriel, coming in.

  “Julia? Goodness gracious! Oh
my, you gave me a start. Slow down now, dear. Did you ask for permission to visit the lavatory?”

  Thank God it was only the pigeon. “Yes, Sister,” I lied.

  She gave me a sharper look. “You’re not feeling ill, are you?” She touched my cheek. “Your face is hot as fire.”

  “No, Sister, it’s just—I need to go, is all.” I danced a little to make my point. (Lucky for me I had a touch of bladder trouble and had wet the bed twice last week—mortifying at the time, but a great convincer now.)

  “Well, well, go on, then. . . . And you too, Betty?”

  Betty? I swung back around. Now where had she come from? I thought I’d made a clean getaway, but of course she was only a hop and a skip behind me. “She doesn’t need to go, Sister. Do you, Betty?”

  Betty shook her head.

  “You’re only following me, ain’t you?”

  Betty grinned and nodded.

  Sister Gabriel smiled. “I see. Well, isn’t it lovely to have such a loyal friend? But even friends need their privacy every now and again, Betty. You come with me, like a good girl, and we’ll just pop into the kitchen, shall we? Let’s see if Sister Genevieve needs a bit of help cutting out the biscuits.”

  And as simple as that (not wishing to look a gift horse in the mouth, and knowing a miracle when I saw one), I was free and clear and out the back door and running right past the privy; I was ducking under clotheslines full of white sheets and orphan bloomers; I was hustling around the tumbledown buggy barn, where Hyacinth chewed his hay, and climbing over the rickety back fence—

  Then climbing back over again, on second thought, and visiting the lavatory after all, making one less lie I’d have to be telling in my next confession.

  I didn’t know the address of Father Dunne’s News Boys Home, but as soon as my boots hit Twenty-Second I spotted a scissors-grinder on the corner, so I hurried toward him and asked politely if he could point me in the right direction. He was a wrinkled old man, all in black, stooping over his pushcart, with a stovepipe hat and a stringy gray beard. He looked up—not at all surprised, as if he’d been expecting me. And then he winked.

  “I’ll tell you for a nickel.”

  “I don’t have a nickel,” I told him, and started to walk away.

  “Never mind,” said the man, smiling a broad smile. The sunlight danced in his eyes, so they looked all sparkly. “Father Dunne’s News Boys Home, was that it?” He put his head to one side, sizing up my plaid. “Would you be looking for your brother, then, young lady?”

  I said that I was—though I wondered how he knew—and he said, “Well, well, then, nothing could be simpler. Just keep going south, the way you’re going, then turn right on Washington Avenue. Too bad you don’t have a nickel; you could catch the trolley and save yourself a walk. You’ll cross Jefferson and Beaumont and Leffingwell and so forth, before you get to Garrison. And there you are—the big brick building, right there on the corner. Just keep your eyes wide open and you can’t miss it.”

  “Thank you,” I said, and I turned to go.

  But he cut me off. “Well, will you look at that? What do we have here?” He reached behind my ear and pulled out a coin. “I thought you said you didn’t have a nickel!”

  He held it out to me.

  I blushed red-hot—I wasn’t a beggar!—and muttered, “No, thank you, all the same,” and ran down Twenty-Second Street as fast as my legs would carry me.

  Did I look like a beggar?

  Anyhow, I’d never in my entire life paid a nickel for the streetcar. Bill had showed me how to hop rides when I was no bigger than a flea. We’d ridden all over St. Louis that way, crouching low on the rear platform so the motorman couldn’t see us, and never had a minute’s trouble, except for the odd policeman, shaking his stick. But the cops didn’t bother themselves chasing trolleys, as a general rule, being mostly meat-and-potatoes men with the bellies to show for it, and not a soul gave me a second glance today. So I caught the first car that came clattering west on Washington.

  Wait, now, not yet. . . . All right, J, get ready. . . . One, two, three—JUMP! That’s the ticket!

  And there I was, quick as that, zipping along to beat the band, past the plodders and the trotters and Cavanaugh’s Quality Coal wagon and a glowering cigar-chomper in a fine yellow automobile, blowing his horn. And feeling like me again for the first time in weeks—Julia Delaney, her own true self, with not a nun in sight—and the wheels racketing under me and the trolley bell clanging away and the blue sparks flashing on the wire above, where the car sucked its power, and the sun on my face and the wind in my hair and the heart in my chest, pounding like thunder, and Bill waiting for me just ahead—

  I’m coming, Bill! I’m on my way!

  Even if he didn’t know it.

  The old man was right; you couldn’t miss the place. Father Dunne’s News Boys Home was an even bigger pile of bricks than the House of Mercy. It was newer-looking, too, and crisper around the edges, with dozens of tall windows and white paint on the trim that hadn’t gone grimy yet.

  There were a couple of boys in caps coming out the front door, with newspapers sticking out of the slings they wore over their shoulders, and three more going in, all with their slings empty. Bill wasn’t one of ’em. Another boy—a scrawny little kid with his back to me—was tending a makeshift garden in a big box just beside the front step.

  Though “tending” wasn’t the right word, really. Whatever the flowers in it might have been to start with, they were stone-dead now, and he was making a terrible mess of his pruning job, hacking away at the lot of ’em with a pair of shears nearly as big as he was.

  I was halfway past him (intending to go around back and see if there was any way to slip inside unnoticed and look for Bill), when I saw his crutch leaning up against the wall.

  “Jimmy? Is that you?”

  “Who else would it be?” he growled. He never lifted his chin but just kept slashing away, as if he was chopping the heads off his worst enemies.

  “Jimmy Brannigan?”

  He looked up now and blinked hard. I wondered if he needed spectacles.

  “Don’t you know me?” I asked.

  “Sure, I know you. You’re—”

  He broke off there and turned his head quickly to the right, then the left. Then he stuck the shears back in the flower box, grabbed the crutch with one hand and my arm with the other, and pulled me around to an alley at the side of the building—not the busy side on Garrison, but a skinny patch of shade over the opposite way.

  When he stopped to face me again, his eyes were shining.

  “You’re Bill Delaney’s kid sister, that’s who you are. Hot dog! So he changed his mind? I knew he would!”

  “Changed his—”

  “I told him I could help. I kept tellin’ him and tellin’ him. Even Mickey said I’d come in handy! But Bill said no, no, no, I was still too little. Can you beat that?”

  “Mickey? Mickey Doyle?”

  “I ain’t little; I’m just short.”

  Bill was still hanging around with Mickey Doyle?

  “I ain’t any littler than you, that’s for sure.”

  “Who are you callin’ little?” I stood up straighter. “What are you, eight?”

  “Who are you callin’ eight? I ain’t been eight for months!” He grabbed my arm again and started tugging me down the alley. “Come on, come on, we’re late; the game started half an hour ago. We can still make the middle innings if we leave right now.”

  “Leave where? Leave here?”

  “Well, what’s the use of staying here? We’re no good to ’em here when they’re there already!”

  My head was starting to swim. It was like that muddle of a story Gran used to read us—the one that always gave me nightmares—about that girl, Alice, falling down the rabbit hole. And everybody at the bottom kept thinking she was someone else, so they figured she knew what they were talking about, only she wasn’t, and she didn’t, and neither did I.

  But Jimmy
was in too much of a hurry to explain, and at least he seemed to know where Bill was, so I let him tug me after him as he hustled down the alley, hopping along on his crutch. You’d think it would have slowed him down, but it didn’t; he was quick as any White Rabbit. He put a finger to his lips as we crept past the kitchen window (I could see the cook inside, polishing a pan), but nobody paid us a bit of mind. And then we were on our way again, going up streets and down streets and back around to Lucas, so that anyone who tried to follow would be as dizzy as I was, ending up on Grand Avenue, finally, where we caught the northbound trolley by the skin of our teeth. I tried to tell Jimmy he’d never make it with his bad leg, but he wasn’t listening to a word I said. Just came flying, crutch and all—

  One, two, three, JUMP!—

  And when I pried my eyes open again, he was hunkered down right beside me, looking happy as Christmas.

  Chapter 9

  There was no use trying to talk over the clatter of the wheels, but at least now I knew where we were going. To the Browns game—well, sure! Hadn’t I taken this same trip dozens of times with Bill himself? And with Papa, too, in the old days, but on the inside of the trolley back then, full up with fans and me so small he’d ride me on his shoulders, so I wouldn’t be stepped on. We’d always rooted for the Browns, even when the Cardinals had a better record. The whole world had a better record, last I checked. But us Delaneys were American Leaguers, so we were regulars at the park on Grand, and I knew the routine as well as I knew my own name: Off at Dodier and a quickstep down the block to the big gate, then under the turnstiles when the crowd roared and the ticket man left his post to catch the score. . . .

  Only before we ever even got to the gate, Jimmy pulled me over behind the flagpole.

  “There it is,” he muttered out the side of his mouth, tough-guy style.

  “There what is?”

  “Well, what do you think? The Chalmers, that’s what!” He jerked his head toward an automobile parked directly in front of the entrance—a bright yellow automobile, at that—either the very one I’d passed earlier, with its horn blasting, or its identical twin.